


when we were young // heartsong

by aubadezayn



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, Canon Compliant, Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Spoilers, Characters with 'B' names are Bucky, Characters with 'S' names are Steve, Homophobia, M/M, Reincarnation, Soul Bond, Soulmates, technically
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-22
Updated: 2016-08-22
Packaged: 2018-08-10 07:06:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,720
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7834948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aubadezayn/pseuds/aubadezayn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I recognized you instantly. All of our lives flashed through my mind in a split second. I felt a pull so strongly towards you that I almost couldn't stop it." - J. Sterling</p>
<p>"The love of every single one of my lives." - Alyson Noel</p>
<p>"Maybe there’s a universe where I’m the right person for you...You just found me in the wrong universe. That’s all. This is, as they say, the darkest timeline...Because you could have loved me forever. And maybe in another universe, I let you." - Gaby Dunn</p>
            </blockquote>





	when we were young // heartsong

**Author's Note:**

> this story may or may not have a unhappy ending, depending on who you are. read with caution tho, because it's not a happy story that's for certain.

In this life she is a skinny, sickly girl who prays to Allah five times a day, and never looks at the little boy doing the same next door. She meets him once when they are both too young to feel the spark, his name is Baasim. Her name is Saabira, she wears the traditional clothing of her people, of her family, and he stares into her eyes enraptured with youthful awe. That’s all he can see, and though he’s too young to understand, he feels his heart jump at this jewel in front of him.

 

She will never speak of it with her mother, or sisters, but her heart jumps too. It beats against the layers of cloth hiding her virtue and skin, and its the most oddly familiar rhythm.

 

It is one lonely day when they are much older that she peaks out her window to his and sees him looking back. He has grown into a devout, beautiful man. Though he cannot know it, she has grown into a beautiful woman. She has overcome the sickness of her childhood, Allah’s strength holding her spine in place, filling her lungs with air, healing her ailments.

 

They pray facing Mecca together that evening, and as she prays she feels it again. The same rhythm of her heart, the same wordless song rushing through her blood, the same little spark of awe and enrapture she’d felt first looking at a narrow-faced, ruddy-cheeked boy imprinted on her life. As the Americans rush the Middle East, as oil and greed and prejudice steal their people’s lives, she prays to Allah that she will be able to have him. She should not, she knows. What Allah gives, it what you deserve, it is what he wills. Everything is in his hands.

 

She prays anyway, putting her heart into Allah’s hands and hoping he’ll put it in Baasim’s.

 

Baasim is enlisted, he is nothing more than a family friend at the time. Saabira watches him leave their village from the front stoop of her home, surrounded by her sisters and Allah’s will.

 

They do not marry each other.

 

Baasim does not return to their village. This is not the life for them.

 

* * *

 

 

Their next life is less recent, and _groovier_.

 

This life around her name is Stephanie, and her best friend is Bernice. They are 14 years old, and they have the coolest jeans and the best sweaters and they listen to groovy music and their older friend Cody has a van they ride around in sometimes.

 

They’ve grown up together, only a few doors down at all times. Their Mothers baked their birthday cakes together, and took polaroid’s of them in the bath playing with bubbles and blocks. Their Fathers smoke cigars sometimes, and chat about things like the President and the Wars. They mostly talk about boys, and celebrities, and how awful their teacher Mrs. Sizemore id.

 

Bernice is 11 when she sees Stephanie changing during a sleepover, and registers that Stephanie has breasts.

 

It’s not weird, she doesn’t let it be. It’s fine, she reasons, it’s okay that you looked for longer than sleepover rules allow. It’s okay that you couldn’t stop cupping your own mostly-flat chest when the lights turned off, thinking about where they’d come from. They hadn’t been there a year ago, had they? Was it summer camp that did it? Had Stephanie kissed a boy and not told her?

 

Stephanie is 12 when she sees a guy flirting with Bernice at a bonfire, and his hand slips under Bernice’s shirt, smoothing over virginal skin. She fumes in a confusing way, angry not that a dude is touching her friend but because it’s not her touching Bernice. It sets her back on her butt, and she spends the whole bonfire wanting to beat Theo’s face in for making this happen. It’s his fault, somehow. When they leave, and Bernice has the dopiest, red-cheeked grin on, Stephanie dreams that night about putting the same smile on her face herself.

 

She’s 13 the first time she really dreams about it being her hands sliding up under Bernice’s shirt.

 

But that’s not allowed. It’s not all right. Girls don’t do that, not with each other. Stephanie dates a boy named Peter for a few weeks, and Bernice doesn’t come around as much during that time. She avoids Steph at school, and doesn’t answer the phone, and it’s only when Stephanie shows up on her doorstep with a pint of ice cream that Bernice smiles again. Peter didn’t last. (It’s _not_ because his hands felt violating, and his breath stank, and he was too big and broad already, even at 13, for Stephanie’s taste).

 

Bernice and her curl up and talk about all the crazy places they want to go, like Canada and Venezuela and England. They eat ice cream, and they don’t talk about Peter, or Theo, or hands, or kissing.

 

They are 16 when they kiss each other for the first time, awkward and unsure with a gentle press of lip glossed lips under a streetlight. It’s late, Bernice was only supposed to be walking Steph home. The first kiss is unspectacular, but they don’t stop with just one.

 

The second feels familiar, like a kiss from a spouse finally coming home, like a kiss from a prince in a Disney movie. The third tastes like home, and it sends a shiver down both their spines as they melt into each other.

 

When they finally break apart, words are already on the tip of Stephanie’s tongue, and she has to hold them back. “ _Why was that so familiar?”_

 

“ _Why do I feel like we’ve done that a thousand and one times?”_

 

“ _Who are you?”_

 

On Bernice’s tongue, are both the taste of Stephanie’s lip gloss and the words “ _You belong to me_ ”. Though that feels too intense to say, too taboo, too risky.

 

They are 18 when they graduate high school, and go to college, and meet many wonderful men and women, and experience many new things. One of them is a dentist and a fraternity brother, and he presents Stephanie with a big fat diamond on their one-year anniversary. She says yes because it’s what’s expected, because it will make her tired Mother smile. Because his hands are gentle, no matter how taxing they feel on her skin, and his kiss doesn’t linger as much as others had. Because she can tolerate him, she could love him one day maybe.

 

Her and Bernice don’t kiss after that. Bernice doesn’t smile quite as much either.

 

They drift apart. This is not the life for them either.

 

* * *

 

The next life is even further into the past, in a time where running water was nonexistent and one small cut could lead to infection that kills you. It’s in a time with castles, and stories of dragons, and the unbearable separation of class structure. In this life, Beval is a farmer who awaits the annual visit of the royal family anxiously. He will till the fields and dream about the glimpse of golden hair and broad shoulders. He will wash his calloused hands under buckets of water from the river, and think about how soft the Prince’s hands must be. They’ve only touched scrolls, and maps, and other royal people’s hands. He’ll never have worked manual labor.

 

Beval never tells anyone about his infatuation, not his gentle Mother or his sweet sister and certainly not his harsh Father. It’s bad enough that there are no princesses in the royal family for him to pretend are his interest, it’s worse that the royal family notoriously buys crops and sells them back for twice the price.

 

The day finally comes where the royal family will arrive and Beval uses the harvest as an excuse to go into the town square. The wagon is piled high with vegetables, especially their family’s famous large pumpkins, and Beval sets out early in the morning when the sun is barely just tipping over the horizon.

 

He’s just finished setting up their stand in the market square when he hears the first excited whispers. “ _The family! They’re coming!”_

 

_“I can see the gold of their carriage!”_

 

_“Do you think prince Santo will come into the market?”_

 

“ _I hope Santo will! I brought my finest indigo cloth, it will bring out his eyes so charmingly_.”

 

Then Beval sees it, the large golden trimmed carriage so familiar and yet so surprising. It comes through town once a year, and he always remembers it vividly. Till he sees it again, and feels like he’s never seen it at all.

 

As it rides past, in just the briefest glimpse, Beval catches a look at Prince Santo with his blonde hair but contrasting darker skin. He is mid laugh, and the image is frozen in Beval’s mind as his heart seizes into his throat. His palms are sweaty as he exchanges copper coins for a pumpkin and a bundle of carrots.

 

The carriage rides past to the house of the Mayor, and does not stop. Beval stays at the market all day, until all the crops are gone and the sun is setting, but the carriage never comes back and Prince Santo is not seen. The others in the market give up on hope far before Beval does, and he’s still holding onto it even as he rides the empty carriage home.

 

Prince Santo is busy, and wealthy, and important. He’ll never know Beval exists.

 

Beval can accept that, infatuated or not, he is no prize for a prince.

 

This is not the life for them. Prince Santo will marry a princess, and they will have beautiful heirs who will rule in their stead. Beval has a beautiful daughter, who will inherit the farm from him. She has light hair, and fair eyes, entirely unlike Beval – and she will remind him till the end of his days of a strangely beautiful and unattainable love.

 

* * *

 

 

The next life is by far the most short-lived. They are in an elevator headed to separate floors in a huge skyscraper in New York. They don’t speak, they don’t know each others names.

 

There is just one long, lingering look when the doors open and one of them gets in. It’s searching for an answer to a question neither of them understand. It’s fiery, with a need that shocks them. How could they want a stranger so badly? There’s heavy possibility in that look, but it closes when the doors ding open at floor 43.

 

One of them gets out, and the possibility breaks. They won’t see each other again.

 

This may not be the life for them, but the connection was as strong as it was in any of the last. Even as they walk away from each, it only falters vaguely.

 

* * *

 

In the next life, it starts with a little boy with a gap-toothed smile and big eyes meeting the smallest runt in the neighborhood. The runt’s name is Steve, and he’s to blame for the semi-ridiculous nickname “Bucky” James will carry for the rest of his life. He laughs and mocks him for it, but of course he really does love it. There’s something warm and permanent about a nickname, like someone’s put their fingerprint on you, like they’ve put a little piece of themselves into your identity.

 

They’re fast friends, growing up on the streets of Brooklyn together. Bucky’s responsible for holding Steve back from fights, and Steve’s responsible for opening Bucky up. Steve might not know it, but he’s the reason Bucky gets his first date with Dot. Steve was the one who told Bucky to get out of his head, to fight for things. That if no one says anything or does anything, nothing will ever happen and that isn’t a life.

 

Steve’s also the reason Bucky enlists. He doesn’t get drafted, he doesn’t run away (though he _wants_ to). He goes down and he enlists because there’s this light in Stevie’s eyes when he talks about his Dad and when he talks about fighting for justice and freedom. There’s this rush to Bucky’s blood, built up by Steve’s insatiable need to fight bullies.

 

In this story though Steve is all bravado, no brawn. He can’t fight the bullies, not how he wants to. He can barely fight off a cold without Bucky holding a warm wet cloth to his forehead and coaching him through asthma attacks.

 

In this story, Bucky goes to war and learns how to kill. The hands that had cradled Steve through rough feverish nights learn how to aim and pull the trigger. Palms that used to sweat just at the sight of Steve’s smile are now cold as a winter morning. They are numb and drenched in blood.

 

In this story, Steve is built like a brick wall when he saves Bucky in Germany. He has a thick neck, and he’s 6 feet tall, and he runs and fights like an Olympian. It’s like a monster has swallowed Bucky’s Steve. The horror only lasts for a couple seconds before he feels it, that same ancient song that’s been singing in his veins since he first laid eyes on a blonde little runt with a big attitude. Steve’s massive, and almost scary, in his transformation but Bucky’s soul knows just as clearly that this is _his_ Stevie.

 

They kiss for the first time after marching into base camp, Steve’s proud smug face announcing to the world that _Captain America_ is now in the game.

 

Bucky corners him in his tent, and tries to make them into one person. It already feels like they are. It’s desperate and almost painful, Steve kisses like he does everything else, like he’s in a battle, like he’s fighting Bucky. He bites Bucky’s lip so hard it almost draws a little blood, but Bucky adores it because he feels alive. He hasn’t felt this awake since he enlisted, maybe even before that. His blood rushes along to the beat of Steve’s heart and the feeling of his hands on Bucky’s tired skin.

 

That is one kiss of a million before Bucky dies.

 

Steve tries, they can both admit that. But Captain America doesn’t die like that, he’s not destined to. He’ll go out with the stars, whereas Bucky’s fall barely makes a sound, barely makes an impression on the earth.

 

By the time they see each other again in this life, they’ve both changed so much that the only recognizable thread between them is that gut-deep feeling of ancient recognition that goes with a soulmate. Bucky’s gone back and forth between a monster and a victim, Steve’s been frozen and unfrozen and shot forward into the future, and they’re both just fighting desperately to survive. But there, underneath their skin, it still runs.

 

Bucky, even in a haze, even as not-himself, feels the same connection and pulls Steve from the water. There’s a part of him, that Hydra infiltrated into his blood, that wants to leave him there and let him sink down, down, down to the bottom. But the song, it’s stronger and older and more inherent to him than any brainwashing can be.

 

It’s not strong enough to make him stay.

 

It’s that same song though, that brings Steve to Romania, that drives him to tear apart his present for his past. It’s the reason Steve and Bucky make an unstoppable team, the reason Tony will all his futuristic technology and anger has nothing on them.

 

It’s that song, that heartbeat, that bond that runs in their blood unbreakable and irreversible: that’s the comforting familiarity that assures Bucky that their story might be riddled with trials and tribulations, but it’s continuous. It’s eternal, in a way that he can’t understand at this human level of consciousness.

 

None of their stories end very well. To a person who does not understand or hear the song that links Steve and Bucky throughout all their lives, neither does this one.

 

Bucky goes into cryo. Steve keeps living on. Maybe one day they’ll be back standing next to each other, maybe this time nothing will knock them down. Maybe in another life, they will be allowed to love as fully and beautifully as they can, and want to.

 

Maybe not. Maybe there's no universe where they're happy.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading! comments much appreciated :)


End file.
